Excelsior Correspondent
WASHINGTON DC, Sept 21: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Science and Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Ministry of Earth Science; MoS PMO, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Space and Atomic Energy, Dr Jitendra Singh today interacted with CEOs and representatives of more than 30 prominent American companies at the US Chamber of Commerce headquarters here and exhorted them to avail of enabling business milieu created in India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Minister said, India under Modi is incentivising investments and called upon them to also engage in Joint Venture opportunities in the wake of pro-business reforms carried out by the Government over the last 8 years.
Miriam Daniel and Priscilla Baek of Google on Geospatial Data, Stafan Alexander, CEO of Nextler Innovations, Emily Beline, Senior Counsel of FedEx, Randy Liebermann, CEO of HoT Technologies, Timothy Puckorius, CEO of Earth Observation Technologies, Glenn Grab of Cyient Technologies, Kevin James, CEO of Climate Compass, Ajeeth Ibrahim of Nanorocks Space Technologies, Ravnish Luthra, CEO of ITGlobe Inc, Sanjay Singhal, CEO of Sintel Satellite Services Inc, were some of the prominent business leaders who interacted in detail with Indian Delegation led by Dr Jitendra Singh.
Apart from business leaders, representatives from USG/Space, DC Government, NASA, American Think Tanks, and Federal Representatives took part in the Roundtable in areas associated with Geospatial, Space, Earth & Ocean Science, Pharma and Biotech Sectors, organised by US-India Business Council (USIBC) at U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Washington, DC. The USIBC represents top global companies operating across the United States, India, and the Indo-Pacific.
Atul Keshap, President, USIBC welcomed Dr Jitendra Singh at the Business Roundtable, while Sripriya Ranganathan, Deputy Chief of Mission, Indian Embassy, Washington, D.C. set the tone for Industry Interaction. The CEOs and representatives of Geospatial, Space, Earth & Ocean Science, Pharma, Biotech and other emerging Sectors held discussions on topics like “The Commercial Opportunities for U.S.-India Space Collaboration, “The Potential of Geospatial”, “Expansive Potential for Growth in Satcoms” and “Commercial Space: Brown, Green and Blue”
Dr Jitendra Singh told the Business Leaders that India and America have very successful cooperation in Space Science and Exploration and ISRO and NASA are working together to launch a joint radar satellite for Earth observation named NISAR [NASA -ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar]. The NISAR mission will collect data vital to tackling the climate crisis. The Minister also informed that ISRO has been getting Deep Space Network Antenna support from NASA in its Missions such as Chandrayaan-1, Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) and Chandrayaan-2 mission and will continue availing support for our Chandrayaan-3 mission. He said, given the space reforms in India in place, India is looking forward to engaging with private sectors for fabrication, manufacturing, and joint development of space system and infrastructure.
Dwelling on the aspects of Clean Energy Technologies, Dr Jitendra Singh said, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Government of India [led by Ministry of Science & Technology] signed an agreement in 2021 to establish the Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC) to promote clean energy innovation by teams of scientists and engineers from India and the United States in Public- Private consortia modes and identified areas of mutual interest such as – Clean Coal Technologies, Advanced Supercritical Carbon dioxide (SCO2) cycle and Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS).
Regarding “Health Sciences & Technologies”, Dr Jitendra Singh said, there has been longstanding collaboration between India and USA in Health Sector. The scientific community and private sector of both the nations have been working together in several programs to understand important diseases and develop new therapeutic, diagnostic and vaccine. He said, new MOU was signed last in October, 2021, which provides an umbrella MOU for expanding cooperation and partnership in the healthcare sector between the two countries.
Apart from giving a brief view of India’s Digital Economy, Dr Jitendra Singh concluded by saying that there is huge scope in expanding cooperation in the areas of common priority such as Quantum Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Ocean Exploration, Electric Vehicles, Emerging Technologies for Telecommunications and Semiconductor Research and Innovation, geospatial technology areas related to acquisition, processing, and dissemination of high-resolution geospatial data.